Livestreaming, Blogging, and Being Less Than Perfect

I’ve been on break from streaming (other than Beyond the Veil) for at least as long as I’ve been on break from the blog. A couple days ago, I finally got around to running a short test stream. I put off adding it to the blog partly because I’m slightly annoyed by it. Not the stops and starts – that was expected for a test stream. But the other things I noted while watching it later. My headset really is dying and not helping the sound quality, settings need tweaking, some UI in game should have been moved…I had weird camera placement since I forgot I slouch like mad when I’m tired. It was also laggy, and I hate that.

Thing is, all of that is part of what made it hard to get back in at all. I’m probably not as picky as some, but I spent a good chunk of hours adjusting things in my preview window before I went live. Trying to make sure everything looked right. Like blogging, if I’m going to stream I want it to be the best quality I can manage. I don’t like looking at it later and seeing something I missed.

It sounds good on paper, but in practice means I’m less likely to get around to actually streaming, and I’m missing the point of what I’m doing. I had fun the other night, I actually did the darn stream, it was vaguely entertaining, and for once I didn’t immediately hate my voice on playback. 😛 I stream as a hobby; I’m just trying to enjoy sharing my gameplay with other people. I blog as a hobby because, despite off days, I love writing and even enjoy editing.

Attention to detail is a good quality in some cases, but my tendency to fly out the other side into “must be perfect” is counterproductive. I know this, it’s been a thing with me for…probably my entire life. I’m hardly alone there, this idea comes up a lot over Blaugust. “But if I’m making myself write daily (or another schedule) what if I make a shitty post?”

Some of the posts I’ve felt most disappointed in, or felt were too far off my regular topics, ended up striking chords with a surprising number of people. Maybe I felt my writing was off that day, or I was muddling through my thoughts, but the end result was still useful or entertaining to someone. There are a number of things I wish I’d done differently during last year’s Extra Life stream, but it was still an awesome 24 hours and I learned a lot. Like, that once Chadzbeth starts following you, you are marked for life. (And to turn off my Steam screenshot noise. :P)

(For those missing the joke: A TSW friend kept changing into the killer chipmunk outfit and stalking me at random points in the game. Here, we’re going into a dungeon and they managed to change into it right before the cutscene, and without me noticing.)

I wouldn’t have fun memories like that if I hadn’t streamed for those 24 hours.

So, my Blaugust Thought of the Day is it’s important to give yourself permission to create a thing, regardless of not being perfect. And waiting for perfection sometimes means never doing the thing in the first place. (Full disclosure is you don’t want to know how many edits my posts go through…even when I’m talking about not having to be perfect. >_>)

Curious about #Blaugust? Visit the Blaugust Initiative page, and then head over to the Nook to see what everyone else is up to. Or check out #Blaugust2016 on social media.